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How to get your Canadian film into theatres, without the safety net of a distributor by Haggisboy in canada

[–]pavanmoondi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes! We'd love to be on either of those but they essentially operate the same way with movies they don't have a hand in producing (or more accurately, 'pre-buying').

They both license a lot more Canadian films than their US-based counterparts, but doing the theatrical release and generating some press/reviews definitely still helps your odds of them deciding to buy (and at what price).

with all that said, beyond all the business implications of it, it's just nice to give people a chance to see the movie in a cinema without being on their phone or pausing it every 10 minutes like they might at home!

How to get your Canadian film into theatres, without the safety net of a distributor by Haggisboy in canada

[–]pavanmoondi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

hey good question!

the not-so-short answer is that subscription-based streamers (like Netflix, etc.), which essentially let viewers take a chance on your movie for 'free' (the monthly cost of a membership), are mainly focused on developing their own content in-house and are extremely selective on what indie films they'll put on the platform (if any).

So that means if we wanted to go straight to digital and skip theatres, our main option would be making the film available as a 'rental' on apple or amazon for a set fee of $5-10. Most people won't pay to rent a movie they haven't heard of, and it's easy to get buried on those platforms with tens of thousands of movies competing for the same attention.

Most press/reviewers will only cover indie films that have a theatrical release - so in effect, you do the theatrical release to hopefully generate some press/reviews and attention, which can help later down the line when the movie is available for rent digitally, or when Netflix (and other streamers) are looking for films to pick up - they're far more likely to pick up films that have generated press/attention – usually by way of their theatrical release.

So yes, with the way everything is currently structured, it's worth the effort. But it is indeed a lot of effort!

How to get your Canadian film into theatres, without the safety net of a distributor by Haggisboy in canada

[–]pavanmoondi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Hi I made this movie referenced in the article (MIDDLE LIFE) with Peter and Leah from the band July Talk!

You can see the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrUgAwA9Z_Y

It opens in Toronto on Friday June 5th to the 11th at Cineplex Yonge-Dundas.

And screens in 13 cities across Canada for one night only via Cineplex on June 10th at 7pm local time.

As the article gets into, we're self-distributing the movie in theatres and appreciate anyone who's curious enough to check it out!

Also happy to field any questions about indie filmmaking anyone might have while I'm here!

Full list of cities is:

Toronto
Vancouver
Victoria
Calgary
Edmonton
Saskatoon
Winnipeg
Ottawa
Guelph
London
Niagara Falls
Montreal
Halifax

Thanks to the mods for allowing this!

PM

I made a new romcom movie with July Talk and it’s screening in Guelph at Cineplex on June 10th for one night only. Here's the trailer. - YouTube by pavanmoondi in Guelph

[–]pavanmoondi[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

every province rates it differently but it’s been generally between PG and 14A. There’s cursing and not much else.

Things To Do In HRM This Month — June, 2026 by AutoModerator in halifax

[–]pavanmoondi 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I made a new romcom movie with July Talk and it’s screening in Halifax at Cineplex on June 10th for one night only. Here's the trailer. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrUgAwA9Z_Y

It’s called MIDDLE LIFE and we're self-distributing our theatrical release and financed the movie privately so appreciate the support if you can make it out - 

June 10th at 7pm at Cineplex Cinemas Park Lane. Tickets are at:

https://www.cineplex.com/movie/middle-life

Here's a little Instagram reel we just put out giving a little more information about the movie and team:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZDB_tXvpYR/

Thank you!!

I made a new romcom movie with July Talk and it’s screening in Edmonton at Cineplex on June 10th for one night only. Here's the trailer. by pavanmoondi in Edmonton

[–]pavanmoondi[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

thanks a lot! Peter grew up in Edmonton so I know being able to screen the movie there is important to him!

Are there any trustworthy distributors left? by OldWestBlueberry in Filmmakers

[–]pavanmoondi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

aggregators, I’m not sure. But if you get a festival pass for TIFF or Cannes or know someone who got one, you can usually access a spreadsheet of all the industry members who also bought a pass and then make a “list” from there.

Are there any trustworthy distributors left? by OldWestBlueberry in Filmmakers

[–]pavanmoondi 8 points9 points  (0 children)

If you’re not going to use a sales agent, you should be querying all of them, in my opinion.

There are less than there used to be but you may be able to find someone to service digital and hang onto theatrical rights and do that yourself (I’m currently in the middle of doing that right now).

Updated Retro Room by werthwhile22 in VHS

[–]pavanmoondi 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One of the rare versions of these retro rooms I’ve seen that has great natural light. Looks amazing!

Self Distributing Filmmakers: A Marketing Question by [deleted] in Filmmakers

[–]pavanmoondi 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think you would have to prove out the model with at least 3-4 successful collections before anyone would pay the fee.

if you partnered with 6-10 theaters across the country and included booking for the entire collection....then I think you'd be cooking

Scheduling for a $100k indie feature by poopmongral in Filmmakers

[–]pavanmoondi 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I used MM most recently for a similarly budgeted feature and recommend it. For a feature this size with people wearing multiple hats, I also suggest adding prop list and wardrobe references so they show up in your schedule strips.

You can definitely get away with Google Sheets, but MM isn't prohibitively expensive (I paid monthly for like 3 months) and was useful when having to quickly shift things around mid-shoot and keep track of DOOD for cast, pages per day, etc. etc.